Birthday Mini Album

At the Paper Girls Challenge this month we're starting with a cutting challenge, "Cut It Out." You can die cut manually, electronically, fussy cut, it just needs to have some serious cutting. 

For my project I used some paper, October Afternoon Cakewalk, that my local store wanted me to use for making samples and whipped up this little birthday mini book. You'll find that I did lots of fussy cutting, and I even used my one little wafer thin die! No electronic die cutting this time, I worked on this one while my computer was dead. 

I used a lot of Imaginesce iRock gemstones in this book to lend a little bling and texture sans glitter. I picked up the album at the fall LSS stash sale, I don't know what brand it is but I have three of them now. 

The first page has the QuickKutz die cut out, the piece of scalloped lined paper. The die is meant as a journaling block and it certainly would work as one in this situation! I love creating mini books and pockets in my mini albums, so here's some of the close ups of this one.

This spread just has a little pocket with a couple extra spots for photos on each side of the cards.

For this next one I split up the shaped mini album pages by inserting some scraps of paper between. The scraps have eyelets to reinforce them, and most of the scraps have stickers as tabs to add interest.

Another page with a pocket. No big deal. 

And finally, the back cover.

Thanks for stopping by and for making it all the way to the end!

Space Birthday

Are you glad it's Friday again or what?! I sure am! This is a big week in our household - our wedding anniversary, Rylan's birthday (turned 3!), FIL's birthday, and my store is in the middle of some much needed renovations. Gotta love the chaos.

But Friday does mean that it's time for some fun, and not only just because it's the weekend but because it's time for this week's SYS challenge. For this week's Scrap Your Story theme we're asking you to do a layout that's birthday related.  

These photos are from Vance's birthday party in December. We'd done a Pizza Planet/Buzz Lightyear theme so I paired up the photos with October Afternoon's Rocket Age. 

The background paper was way to textual and balanced for me so I took some watercolors and darkened out one whole quadrant and then faded out toward the center and bottom.

The sketch I based my layout on was Scrapbooksteals MWM Aquamarine 2.

Scrap Your Story - song lyrics

Music is everywhere and while I have been known to make up a witty one-line parody on occasion as a title or in a blog post I don't typically use parts of actual songs on my layouts. Actually, the only time before today was for a different Scrap Your Story challenge last term! 

There's so many songs about Rockets/Space Flight that choosing just one for this week's Design Team Reveal at SYS was rough.  I finally settled on the theme from a television series that the hubby adores - Firefly. The song's theme is called "Serenity," and I copied one of the choruses as a border for my page.

"You can't take the sky from me" seemed like an appropriate line for a little boy's rocket/outer space birthday party. Most of the song is sort of space cowboy/survivalist but that line stuck out to me every time I watched the one-season series with David. 

Here's the rest of my page:

I used a sketch provided to this group I'm part of on Facebook - thanks Kristy!

 The papers, chipboard stickers and other embellies are from October Afternoon Rocket Age. The orange journaling is an orange ultrafine tip Sharpie. The song lyrics are written with white and then black American Crafts Galaxy Markers. I cut the polaroid/title with my Silhouette Cameo (and then proceeded to use it as a mat instead of a frame!). There's also touches of Studio G glitter glue throughout. 

Scrap Your Story - Spring

At Scrap Your Story this week we're challenging you to embrace spring. We want to see your flowers, spring color, spring pics, Easter, whatever makes you think "spring."

I pulled out some photos from March 2012 - we went on a road trip with friends the weekend before Spring Break and their college-aged daughter took these photos while we were enjoying unseasonably warm weather.

When I started playing around with the page it sort of morphed from my original idea and I realized I'd scraplifted myself. But as much as I liked that layout, I LOVE the way this one turned out.  

I created a mask using a shape from the Silhouette Studio software.

I used October Afternoon Sprinklers and American Crafts Mister Huey's. 

Patterned papers are Pink Paislee's Prairie Hill, plus a few Glitz Designs and Echo ParkScraps.

Grey Cardstock is American Crafts.

Embossing folder from Lifestyle Crafts.

Embellishments include: Prima flowers, Girl's Paperie brads, Glitz Designs dimensional stickers, My Mind's Eye stickers and twine, WRMK eyelets and twine.

Machine stitching and lots of inking with Distress Ink in Walnut Stain.

Dapper Dudes

I was so excited to get My Mind's Eye's newest collection in the mail that I just had to bust into Collectable "Memorable" for this page based on a Paper Secrets sketch. The twist this week was to use Thickers. 

The Thickers I used are from an older line, so old that I have to reapply glue to each letter when I use them! For this project I also misted them with OA Sprinklers because those babies were white, white, white. I love the way the "Wheat field" transformed them, a perfect color match!

I also did a little altering on the flowers, which were to pink for me. I rubbed white paint on most of each flower and then misted with more Wheat Field. 

The doily stamp is from Unity Stamp Co. "Grandma's Closet," I stamped it with black ink and then the one at the top I heat embossed with Gold Zing! embossing powder. 

You'll notice I busted out one of my homemade enamel dots again, such a nice little touch in that cluster.

Rockin' with my Dad

Ever start a project only to realize that now that you've picked papers that you have to abandon it to help the kiddos, make dinner, etc.? That's what happened with this layout. I'd set out to do it and realized that it was time to start dinner for company. When hubby's alarm woke me the next day I woke with a start! I had a crazy idea about what I wanted to do for this page. 

I have LOTS of pictures of my guys throwing these pebbles at our local park's lake and I wanted to take this two photo Paper Secrets sketch and give it a few more while maintaining the sketch. 

In addition to the sketch, Paper Secrets challenge included using a chevron. I accomplished this with some paper piecing that I then sewed together.

So I laid out what would go behind the multi-colored doily page and stitched the doily paper down on just one side to make a flap. I even decorated the back of the doily paper with another photo. 

The inside of my three page single page layout!

All the papers are My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, as are the dimensional stickers and clips. There's WRMK and MME washi. The alphas are a variety of American Crafts Thickers and October Afternoon alphas. In addition to machine stitching I used two WRMK Sew Stamper heads. And lastly, Kiwi Lane templates provided some of the shapes, and I used a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder.

Brothers throw stones

Okay, in this case they were throwing pebbles. And into water. But the throw stones part was a witty thing I came up with as I was putting this post together, and will probably be added into the page in some manner at a later date. 

This layout was inspired by Let's Get Sketchy's January week 4 challenge. I also used the color blue for the Scrapbooksteals.com MCM Baby Blues challenge. 

And while this used mostly My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, there's also touches of Indie Chic Nutmeg, and a Miss Caroline wooden embellishment that I colored on with American Crafts Metallic Markers. The splatters and mists are from October Afternoon and Mister Huey's. The doily embossing folder is Lifestyle Crafts. 

Scrapbooksteals.com Jade 2

Kerys did a fabulous job with the sketch this week! I was very excited to play along with the Scrapbooksteals.com MWM - Jade 2.  Once again, I used a weekly sketch to knock out one more page of my December Daily album. 

December Daily 9

I'm also entering this page into the If It's Groovy challenge - create your own paper/background. I made the background by laying tree die cuts (from a mis-cut, yay for still finding a purpose!) onto a piece of American Crafts Kraft Cardstock. Then I used three shades of mist, from October Afternoon and Mister Huey, and sprayed and splattered away.

The other layers are an assortment of scraps from LilyBee Designs, Echo Park and My Mind's Eye. The twine is WRMK. Embossing powder is American Crafts Zing!. Green glitter glue is Studio G.

MWM Coral 9 - Trucks Up Close

I don't often push these things to their deadline, but with Thanksgiving this week I sure squeaked under the wire to finish up my Scrapbooksteals.com Coral 9 on time. I loved the sketch when it was posted - especially when I saw the initial interpretation. The papers just screamed at me to buy them. I resisted, partly because I was to busy! So here I am, blogging after the deadline so that I can find the link easily because at the end of the series there's always a little drawing for those who completed all ten. Sweet. I've never won it, but the prizes are normally out.of.this.world.

Favorite thing about this layout?! That I  used up a lot of  bigger scrappy leftovers from various collections. Don't get me wrong, I still have scraps from these scraps...the scraps seem to be neverending!

Camera at the ready

With our close-ish proximity to the zoo we have taken the boys several times. It has been awesome to see them take in everything new and afresh each time, always discovering new aspects. My favorite trip is nearly always our most recent one, and this holds true yet again. 

New this time was the perspective we gave Vance. Armed with an old point and shoot (with an already scratched lens) he walked around the zoo grounds looking at the display and pausing frequently to take pics. None of them are really in focus or zoomed correctly on the animals, but he loved it!

I used the November week 1 Let's Get Sketchy sketch for this one and was so proud of myself for using a bunch of my washi.

Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger and Rocket Age

This is the first time I've played along with Paper Secrets' sketch challenge. I couldn't help myself after meeting Kerys. 

A bonus element to their sketch - I used October Afternoon paper for the first time! Rocket Age was a perfect match for these photos of Vance and his Buzz wings. A big thanks  and virtual hug to my friend, Staci, for hooking me up with this paper. 

The black paper is a liner page from a scrapbook album with silver pen dotted into a starry sky, the banner pieces are 3 Bugs Blast Off!, and the Rocket Age papers are from an 8x8 pad, the large alphas are American Crafts Thickers and the smaller ones are October Afternoon.

Back to back weekends at the Magic House

My parents have paid for a season pass to the Magic House (children's museum) for over a year now. I have  many pictures of the place, but while watching my boys exploring and getting exciting about each new discovery they make (and at least one happens every trip!) I just can't help but pull out my camera all over again.

So this spring we ended up at the museum twice in two weeks - once for a relatively normal weekend at my mom's and then the next because my out of state sister announced that she'd be in the area and we drove back.

That equals lots of pictures, though normally I wouldn't have printed as many as I did. The printer bug must have got me. I ended up with way more than I'd normally put into their scrapbooks for the same event in two weeks. Even if some of the pictures do have their cousins in them! 

Now my mom on the other hand? Never, or very rarely prints pictures. And even more rarely does she scrapbook, time has made her into more of a card maker (though it's really her fault that this is my hobby). I decided to share some of those excess pics in the form of a mini album, but she's gonna have to do the journaling about her grandbabies.

The front and back cover chipboard pages are from MME, leftover from another mini album. Almost all the paper is Amy Tangerine and Amy Tangerine Sketchbook. There are some assorted pieces from American Crafts Chap and a variety of Thickers. The ribbons are a big mess of stash, MME, and Pebbles - basically all the oldish scraps that matched. The mini alphas on the front cover are from October Afternoon (blue) and Glitz (pink)

 

The interior pages are banner shapes that I cut out of thin cardboard (the cover from paper packs, though cereal boxes would work too) using my Silhouette Cameo. This spread has lots of room for journaling and in the pocket on the right there's a bunch of pictures matted to paper and held together with eyelets and twine.

 

No picture fun here, but lots of color and one of very few photos of all the boys together. There is a hidden journaling spot under the solo picture on the left side. I also had fun adding a little bit of misting/splatter here.

 

This spread has more hidden pictures. The left side has one picture matted on the front side of the booklet. The right side has two extra layers of the cereal box curved to the edge in descending size, paper covering both sides of each piece. I punched holes through each layer and tied together with ribbon and glued the bottom layer of paper. When the page is flat photos are just offset of each other.

 

 Left side here is really basic again, with the right side featuring several pictures that can be seen by rotating them on the brad.

 

By the time I got to this spread I was nearly out of photos so I didn't have to make any hidden pockets or anything. Just lots of scrappy fun.

Love this back cover! Though I do need to come up with a solution for keeping the Thickers safely adhered. I'm worried they'll get bumped around and scraped off. Any tips?

Action Heroes

Some layouts come together nicely, following a predesigned path. Sometimes that path takes it's own twists and turns. In the case of my Authentique August Challenge page that's exactly what happened. I am so happy that I followed the "new" path though.

A new thing for me on this page was how I used the mists. I was inspired this weekend by the Scrapbooksteals Blog Hop to pull those messy little bottles back out.  I "misted" one piece and then proceeded to dry brush the leftover ink onto the other pieces instead of inking with my stamp pads.

I seriously am in love with this page. It is decidedly a new favorite of mine!

Authentique products:
Uncommon Original
Blissful Pleasant
Journey Noteables
Journey Headlines
Journey Icons
Miracle Boy Tabloids
Bi-Fold Foundations

Other products:
October Afternoon Mini Market Pink and Black alphas
October Afternoon Sprinklers Set Sail
Jenni Bowlin Embellished Butterflies
American Crafts Thickers Shoe Box and Amy Tangerine Lovely
Studio G Glitter glue
Silhouette Studio/Cameo
Stash gems

MWM Pearl 2 - Potato Cheese

This week's Scrapbooksteals.com Mid Week Mojo was by one of the design team, Katrina Hunt. I love this sketch! It's got a lot of fun potential but still a fairly clean sketch. 

For my interpretation I used pics of Squishy and American Crafts Campy Trails. The colors worked perfectly with his shirt, plus there were all those fab little banners that I could fussy cut instead of trying to make them on my own or pull out the Cameo. 

I did pull out a machine though - my sewing machine and stitched the banner into place. I also sewed on two other embelly pieces just to accent them a little bit. 

Also, really fun on this one is the addition of the DIY Thickers. Eek! How crazy fun. I used the new green Pop! beads. I love how they look but they kept flaking off and rolling all over my desk, which was ever so slightly annoying. To solve the problem for this page, I just coated them in glossy accents. So in the pic they look really solid and thick, but in person you can see the texture, but you can't get to the beads. Perfect. 

American Crafts Campy Trails
American Crafts DIY Thickers
American Crafts Pop! beads
Glitz Designs mini alphas
Blue Toothpicks
Sewing Machine, white thread
Ranger Distress Ink, fine china
October Afternoon All Aboard Sprinkler

Project Goal 100

To date: 19

Authentique July Sketch - Magic Moments

We happened to be at my mom's house on Palm Sunday when I got a call from my sister saying they were coming for a visit the following weekend. They live 17 hours away (longer with kids!) and since the last time I'd seen her we'd both had babies so we quickly changed our Easter plans in order to make the trip again the following weekend. We were all so busy socializing that I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the four cousins playing together, there's a couple more but these are the best of the bunch, and two of them were taken at The Magic House (hence the title)! I'm thinking I'll do a couple more pages and then pick one to frame as a Christmas present for my sister and her hubs.


The sketch I used was from Authentique's July Sketch Challenge. I did flip the sketch to use horizontal pictures but tried to stay true to the feeling. ;)

Authentique Product List:
Gathering Tabloids
Gathering Grow 12x12
Gathering Together 12x12
Petite Type Circle Blue
Blissful Pleasant 12x12
Blissful 6x6 pad

Other Products:
Jenni Bowlin Dimensional Butterflies
Paper Studios Affinity Ribbon
Studio G Glitter Glue
American Crafts Amy Tangerine Thickers - Lovely
Distress Ink - broken china and walnut stain
October Afternoon Sprinklers - Set Sail
BasicGrey Paper Ribbon Doilies - Kioshi
Prima Say It in Pearls - Vintage Branch

Turquoise 8 - I Da Man

I love when an experiment turns out even better than I'd hoped. Having never used a mask for mists before I wasn't certain what spraying through a 12x12 Doily would look like but the depth it added to otherwise boring cardstock is fabulous! I'm so gonna have to do that again. 

I'd actually misted this pink for another project and had done to many pages so this piece was scrap and hanging out on the desk when Scrapbooksteals posted their Turquoise 8 sketch. Kristy had done an awesome job with the sketch and had even done a page about her recent adventure into the 40s. Given how much time I spend scrapping two adorable little guys I've tried to follow her lead and when she scraps about herself, I find something quirky about myself to share too. 

In this week's case we have "I Da Man" -- a page about my high school drama experience playing a dude. I'm not entirely sold on the title's appearance, but it did allow me to use several stashed letters! YES! I wanted to contrast my dude-ness with a very feminine page, so there's lots of pink and lots of flowers. 

Misted Doily was Basic Grey
Paper Studios cardstock and Affinity printed papers
Authentique die cuts
Prima Say it In Crystals - female silhouette and photo corners
Pedoodles flowers
buttons stash
MME ribbon
Target pink alphas
BasicGrey Oliver Alphas
ColorBox Chestnut Roan
Studio G Brown glitter glue